Having seen a few of those cool "day in the life" reports for certain
variants, I thought I'd give it a shot myself. Lately, I've been rolling
characters with random sex, race, and class. Last night, the RNG gave me a
Barbarian Warrior-Mage of Arcane and Nature magic. I named him Zungun.

== Day 1 ==

Zungun explored town, picked up some lousy protective equipment to go with
his starting short sword. I always like to get a shield so I can have
shield bashes, but no shields were available in either the Warrior Hall or
the Temple. I got a quest from the Mage's guild: danger level 10, to kill
a Dark Elven priest in his hideout. I like to push things, but that is
definitely not doable yet, and the quest from the Town Hall was out of my
reach (not high enough level to get it yet). I bought a ?WoR, 3 ?phasedoor,
and some !poison for emergency damage. No healing to be had in town, so I
used up most of my gold on a ?tele and a ?id, so they won't be mysteries,
and heading into the sewers.

First trip didn't last long; Zungun killed a couple things but had to flee
from a quite out of depth large kobold I couldn't handle. Wasted a !pois on
it, too. The potion I sold turned out to be !slowness. Okay, round two...

The second round saw Zungun ascend quickly through clvl 1-6 (much XP from
casting newly learned spells), got clvl 7 from Grip, and came back to town
with lots of potions. A lucky crapshoot on my ?id let me id a !cureSerious,
and I picked up a wand of magic missile and ended up as 9th level. Back in
town, I request the quest from the Town Hall (lvl 14 mine (2 lvls), nice),
my second Arcane spellbook, and proceed to attempt the dark elven priest
quest.

Turns out the quest is beyond another town, luckily, it was easy to find.
A Huorn in the wilderness was almost fatal, those things are very dangerous.
First attempt on the quest failed: my zaps took some damage off the priest
but he kept healing... then I got low on hp thanks to the curses, blinked,
and ended up next to him (but on the stairs), so I left. Second time, I
got horribly scarred by a pit trap, but reached clvl 10 from disarming traps.
This time I got up next to the priest right off the bat and took him down
with melee attacks. Evaded Old Man Willow (thank god) on my way out.

Stopped at Gathfun (the nearer town) on the way back. Picked up a quest
from the Castle there, to kill Freesia in her lair. Should be easy. The
rod the priest dropped turned out to be a door/stair location, sold it.
Also found a trident (1d12) with no plusses, a weapon upgrade. Trying out
a spell led me to clvl 11, which lets me cast Lore, a spell for strong
pseudo-id, which will be very useful. Quest reward was about 1k gold,
some intelligence, =SlowDig, and some experience. Ran back to Gathfun to
pick up a Nature Mastery book at 25% off. On my way, took out Freesia.
Ended up at clvl 13; next quest is to kill Robin Hood in his lair... nice
that he's in there and not out in the wilderness.

Thoughts so far: This was a remarkably nice random class/race/magic
selection. Barbarians have a low XP penalty and get nice bonuses to
Str (+3) and Con (+2). Int -2 hurts a bit, but as a Warrior-Mage, you
can't really expect to get by on just spells, and my Int is 17.7, so I'm
getting by. Arcane is a great magic school early on. Nature is pretty
good mid-game and has some powerful spells later on. They also mesh
nicely: VERY nicely. Arcane has a lot of good utility spells, but it's
missing mid-level damage spells and trap/door/stair detection. Nature
magic has that, plus lightning and frost bolts in book 2. Nature lacks
escape magic but Arcane has blink, and teleport / teleport away later.
In fact, I'd say Nature may be the best gap-filler for Arcane magic. It's
very nice that I'm at level 13 and already have both my 2nd level books.
My cash situation could be better, but I have what I need for now. No
great stuff yet, though.

Dev notes: Freesia is an "it". XP from disarming traps and casting new
spells may be excessive, look into it.

== Day 2 ==

Today, Zungun explored the nearby wilderness, looking for new towns and
easy quests. He picked off a couple easy ones, one to kill a Scruffy-
Looking Hobbit, and one to clear 1 level of a 150' mine. This latter
one was actually quite annoying, because Barbarians have no infravision,
and there were a number of clear icky things to find. And then I got
a potion of boldness as a reward. Oh well, I guess it was a very low
level quest. Killed Bloodfang the Wolf in the Wilderness, no problem.

Found another large town; this one had a Thieves' Guild
that, for entrance to the guild, sent me to clear out a den of dark
elves. I had four wands of light by this point, so it seemed to be a
good use of my equipment. The quest turned out to be a fair bit harder
than I had expected. There was a minor vault and a few tough rooms;
there ended up being about 7 each of Dark Elven priests and magi. The
treasure was okay but not astounding; the best was a wand of Fire Balls.
Also got some rods of light, two wands of lightning bolts, a =Invis +4,
and a War Hammer of Keenness with relatively low plusses, but still,
best weapon yet. Clvl 18.

Next, Zungun cleared out the 2 levels of the mine near his starting town.
This was a good idea; the mine wasn't especially tough and didn't have
outstanding treasure, but the next quest from the Town Hall was to kill
a fire giant (in his den), which was easy and rewarding, and then after
that, to kill a Water troll in his lair. This was a level 45 quest and
gave a major gold reward, which has solved Zungun's difficulty with basic
supplies. The Water troll wasn't that tough either; casting blink and
using rods of light took care of it pretty safely.

After this, I noticed the corner of a new town, and proceeded there, to
find a mapmaker, which helped lots in exploring the area. It revealed
another town, past a low-level guarded dungeon; I recognized the name
from a courier quest I had picked up earlier, so I headed in that
direction. I joined the Thieves' guild in Nimcar Town after clearing out
a 300' mine, but annoyingly both the next Thieves' guild quest and the
quest from the keep are malfunctioning and probably not completable. So,
I returned to Zulnu View to collect from the courier, and then took on a
quest to kill a necromancer in his den from the Mages' guild. This may
have been my toughest battle so far; I used a fire ball or two, but he
summoned a headless ghost, who drained Zungun's experience, intelligence,
and wisdom. The necromancer went down, and Zungun finally found a legit-
imate ego weapon: a Hammer of Returning of Slay Animal. The quest reward
was very nice (as usual from a Mages' guild): Intelligence, Gold, and
nice magical treasure including a !Charisma, !Con, -LightningBalls,
-LightningBeams. CLevel 24 at this point; able to cast Magic Mapping,
and one level away from Detection. Zungun has a nice stack of ?Tele and
eight ,CureCritical (the mushrooms in Z+ cure ailments, but the potions
don't, so these are superior). Equipment has tons of room for improvement.

Dev notes: Annoying -- if you try to sell something you're equipping, it
unequips it first. Quests created off the edge of the map?

Character dumps after each day are attached. (I tried to add them to the ladder but Z+ is not a recognized variant yet.)

pav

September 2, 2008, 09:48

Please try to post your dump on the Ladder now - Z+ should now be allowed.

Tenka

September 5, 2008, 05:15

The first (and last) time I tried a random I ended up with a Yeek Mirrormaster (Hengband)....didn`t go so well.

I managed to get to lvl3 riding a wand of MMissile but the charges ran out before Fang`s hitbar did.

Mangojuice

September 5, 2008, 06:33

The first (and last) time I tried a random I ended up with a Yeek Mirrormaster (Hengband)....didn`t go so well.

I managed to get to lvl3 riding a wand of MMissile but the charges ran out before Fang`s hitbar did.

So far my most miserable random character was the Spectre Warrior. All that XP penalty for all that unused Int and Wis... and his strength and fighting were so weak he couldn't even hit Large brown snakes initially. Ok, that happens to a lot of characters... but a Warrior? He just had nothing going for him at all. I forget what killed him... I want to say a green naga... at clvl 10 or so. SO pathetic.

Mangojuice

September 5, 2008, 06:34

== Day 3 ==

Progress has slowed down noticeably. Zungun is still jumping from town to
town, tackling the lower-level quests opportunistically for stat bonuses,
experience, and gold. Took out several uniques in quests: Robin Hood (got
Ring Mail of Resist Lightning [12,+0]), Boldor, Farmer Maggot. Killed
Wormy near a dungeon entrance and got a wand of lightning balls and a Light
Xbow of Accuracy. Highlight of the evening was the completion of an easy
artifact quest, to find Dethanc. First artifact! Clvl 25.

I should probably be pushing it harder. In a sense, I am, by exploring
so much wilderness. It's rewarding; the quests are pretty safe but the
wilderness can be dangerous. But it may be time to take on one of those
4-levels-of-X dungeon quests soon. Since the end of day 1, I've gained:
2.4 Str, 2.1 Int, 1.8 Wis, 2.9 Dex, 2.0 Con, and 0.5 Chr over 16 quests.
This is sure a lot more interesting than the typical potion-scumming people
do later on. And the +2.1 Int has made this character much more playable,
though his spell failure still bottoms at 6%.

Dev notes: Some quests show up as "Quest" navigating the overhead map even
though they aren't active. Reminder: make Amulets of Sustenance deeper.
Thinking it would be cool to have an inscription that limits the number of
an object one would default to pick up. So, e.g., don't pick up more than
5 of your spellbooks. Also, reminder to self: option to auto-kill empty
chests.

== Day 4 ==

Today was somewhat more productive. Without short quests available to easily
pick off, Zungun attemped to clear 4 levels of an underground city near Asram.
With a full stock of Scrolls of Alchemy, he ended up doing okay. The worst
danger he faced were (1) a Chaos Beastman who drained a fair bit of XP while
inflicting confusion, which made escaping a problem, and (2) Ulwarth, Son of
Ulfang, whose escort included two necromancers, a demonologist, a clairvoyant,
and lots of novice rangers. The demonologist summoned a Fiend of Slaanesh,
who decimated Zungun's strength. Oh, and Quylthulgs are very aggravating
when you are trying to clear out levels. Picked up the Phial of Galadriel
(dropped by an Ogre!) and gauntlets of FA, which I have rustproofed at +9.

Dethanc is awesome. I had underestimated the incredible benefit of its large
DEX bonus (through the LUA script) -- Dethanc gives me 4 attacks, and I've
now enchanted it up to (+10, +45%). Dev note: the 'thancs are still over-
powered for the depth they occur at.

The dungeon clearing quest was followed by a couple of easy assassination
quests, one for a Mature green dragon, one for an Ettin, and I also finished
a quest I had picked up earlier to kill Hagen, son of Alberich. Clvl 27 now.
I feel reasonably good about this character; Zungun can really dish out the
damage in melee, and has plentiful special-situation magical damage to call
on, thanks in no small part to the fact that in the 11 towns I've explored,
a very surprising 5 have Mages' guilds, at which I can confidently recharge
my wands of fire balls, lightning balls, and lightning beams. Zungun's
defense is not great; he is still vulnerable to Confusion, and has only a
couple damage resists: Elec and Acid. He has plenty of ,CCW for emergency
situations, but no _Teleport yet. So that's the next big thing to work on.
Fortunately, he has 114K gold at this point, so maybe some (boring) shopping
is in order.

Bandobras

September 5, 2008, 18:41

Thinking it would be cool to have an inscription that limits the number of
an object one would default to pick up. So, e.g., don't pick up more than
5 of your spellbooks.

That's in Un, done long ago by UnAndrew, and quite portable, I think. Never used is myself, though, since I don't ever get deep enough.